It appears The Supporters of the Performing Arts, the Town Trustees, and the Mayoral appointed EPURA Commission are on a mission to bury the School District, once and for all. The EPURA Commission, appointed by the Town Mayor (many pictured here) are also members of SOPA a local private club, apparently all supporters of performing arts (including Mayor Bill Pinkham who is on the campaign steering committee "fund raising"). This group has lobbied heavily to retain EPURA to fund their private little theater. As usual the Town has taken a very useful tool that accomplished some timely projects after the 1982 flood, and twisted and morphed it into an abomination.
TIF as designed, is a funding mechanism to rejuvenate slum and abandoned sites where all tax receiving entities in the vicinity of the slums receive little or no income from the slum, because a trashed out slum - is a trashed out slum. If and when a project is conceived to develop a slum, projections are made to anticipate what income could be expected from the rejuvenated area, in addition to improving neighboring property values. Tax Increment Financing only works as a projection on a proposed project - like a trashed out slum, where the project is identified and cost benefit analysis demonstrate payback over time. Bonds are secured without voter approval, and when the redevelopment is completed the effected districts in and around the area of the slum contribute a portion of their allotted mil levy, until all bond stake holders are satiated. When the stake holders are paid back the TIF is removed, and then all districts receive their entire mil levy. Theoretically in this manner All districts contribute, and eventually (when the debts are cured) All districts receive the benefits. This formula works (in some instances) and it can work for school districts as well, because when a slum is rejuvenated people with kids move into the rejuvenated area and property values will increase – win/win. TIF and Urban renewal hasn’t work quite this way in Estes Park.
Further more, Urban Renewal Law in Colorado requires that one elected authority be responsible as the "transaction agent" they receive the diverted funds from all the districts, write out the appropriate checks, and do the appropriate accounting - in the case of Estes Park it was determined that the Town Trustees be the check writer. Now years later, the handling agent (Town Hall) claim all the credit for what improvements where made, but in fact all the districts contributed tax dollars EXCEPT the Town, who kept their projected contribution which was sales tax dollars - to the tune of 30 million dollars! All the Town really did was spend all the other districts money - claiming it to be theirs, when in reality they were only the handling agent.
The Urban Renewal Law has two retirement devices to assure the intent and extraordinary powers of urban renewal are not abused. The first is: after a reasonable time frame (25 years) the Urban Renewal Authority just retires “job done - adios”. The second is: by way of citizens initiated ordinance, which retires an Urban Renewal Authority at such time when all debts are cured, as initiated by the local citizenry. This covers the major loop hole in the Urban Renewal Law which is the state legislatures inability to govern ethics, you cannot legislate the ethical behavior of local politicians, which is the purview of the local citizens.
How Urban Renewal Authorities go amuck is a potpourri of political manipulations, and legal slight of hand definitions. If the handling agent turns out to be an unethical bully - twisting the law and taking all the money, it is up to the local citizens to step in and fix the situation. That is what is happening now in Estes Park. The citizens are attempting to retire the Urban Renewal Authority, because EPURA is out of control - playing bully-boy-politics with all the other districts.
The unethical behavior expressed by the Town Trustees, is the hijacking and theft of the other districts funding – because they can. The Town Trustees have already threatened a protracted legal battle if the citizens vote "yes" to retire EPURA. All the effected districts wrote letters to the Town Trustees to retire the Urban Renewal District in 2008, and the Trustees summarily (save for one) ignored the request. The effected districts need their money too, but Bully Town Hall wants it all - even stooping so low as to take money from the school kids and now the new Fire District.
The convoluted unethical definition as applied by the Town Trustees is : “I” did all these things and “I” am entitled to all the money, when in reality TIF only works correctly when “WE” (the collective district contributors) contributed and “WE” the contributors benefit when the bonds are paid off. The bonds were paid several years ago, and yet the Town kept taking money, expanded the blight area, to accomplish tasks that have no correlation to any original TIF projection. Politics long ago took over EPURA, as mayoral appointed commissioners took direction from the Trustees to attend to Town Department needs, and the trustees looked the other way as special favors were taken by the commisioners. A very good case could be made that the Town owes the other Districts money - all the money diverted after all bonds were satiated. As the handling agent the Town Trustees kept their money, hording "community reinvestment funds" while spending other Districts funds on Town maintenance items, such as: signage, stop-light post painting, upgrading grandstands, painting store fronts, upgrading Town Department facilities, even creating entire Town Departments. A very good case could be made that this hijacking of other District funds created Department jobs - distributed to friends and family, titled “Loss Leaders.” Further more, TIF funds were spent on items of "advertising and marketing" deemed inappropriate and unlawful expenditures by the Supreme Court of the State of Colorado. The Estes Parkian is calling for an internal forensic audit, to find out where the money went.
At the end of the day, the only thing EPURA really did was sprawl additional retail square footage consisting of tiny retail spaces east along Elkhorn Avenue - store owners that once leased space on West Elkhorn moved east leaving spaces on West Elkhorn vacant. Over the past ten years total retail sales in the Estes Valley have dropped drastically. Progress and growth for whom you may ask? According to a survey conducted by Larimer County in association with the County Master Plan, the average Estes Park business owner makes $20,000 annually and the average Town of Estes Park employee makes $60,000, not including subsidized housing and medical bennifits. School enrollment drops every year by 75 students!
The Trustees have legislative oversight of the Town of Estes Park, they make and enforce the laws over commons and health and safety issues; like construction and construction material standards, fire code ordinances, pedestrian safety, and traffic control - all which they ignore. There are NO two bigger ECONOMIC BLIGHT properties in the Downtown Business District than (A) "Town Hall" which is the antithesis of the zoned purpose of the Downtown Business District, and (B) the state highway that bisects the same - yet these issues are ignored.
The Town Trustees are way out of line here, and the Estes Parkian is asking the citizens of our Town to stop the Trustees and their appointed minions from burying the other Valley Districts.
VOTE YES
